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ScienceTake

New Form of Fire, Inspired by Bourbon, Might Help With Oil Spills

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Harnessing the ‘Firenado’

A new, blue, whirling shape of fire, inspired by bourbon, could one day help clean up oil spills.

This small, swirling blue flame is more than a curiosity. One day, it could be a key tool in the cleanup of oil spills. It’s called a fire whirl or, more informally, a “firenado.” Fire whirls happen naturally and they burn very hot, so most studies about them are how to stop them. Scientists at the University of Maryland thought maybe they could harness these fire whirls for good. They engineered the airflow to produce a typical fire whirl about two feet tall. That vortex unexpectedly transformed into a swirling blue flame. A blue flame means really clean, soot-free burning. And that would be great for dealing with oil spills. The researchers are still trying to analyze exactly why the blue whirl appeared. When they figure that out, they’ll go on to the next step to try and create the phenomenon on a larger scale: a big blue whirl.

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A new, blue, whirling shape of fire, inspired by bourbon, could one day help clean up oil spills.

A small blue flame, circulating in a vortex called a fire whirl, could become an important tool in oil spill cleanup, according to the scientists who created it. And they give bourbon credit for inspiring the research.

Fire whirls, colloquially called firenadoes, look like tornadoes or wind devils, and they burn hotter than many other fires.

The results can be devastating in a city or a forest. So researchers have studied fire whirls with an eye to stopping or preventing them. Three scientists from the University of Maryland had a different idea.

Huahua Xiao, an assistant research scientist, who conducted experiments on fire whirls along with Michael J. Gollner and Elaine S. Oran, said, “We wanted to harness the power of fire whirls for good.”

As for the bourbon, the research was prompted not by consumption of this particular kind of high-test, but by a video of flaming bourbon.

A spill from the Jim Beam factory on a pond in Kentucky caught fire in 2003, and a fire whirl formed spontaneously. Because fire whirls are relatively efficient in terms of how complete the combustion is, Dr. Xiao said, it seemed they might be useful in dealing with other kinds of spills, creating less soot than other kinds of fires.

The researchers didn’t use bourbon in their experiment. Instead, they picked a more common experimental substance, n-heptane. It’s an ingredient in some fuels used to test engine performance.

They poured it on water in a pan about 16 inches in diameter, and then ignited the fuel. They channeled air to produce a vortex. As they expected, a fire whirl about two feet high formed with a typical yellow and orange flame.

That little firenado soon changed, however, to a smaller, differently shaped, swirling blue flame, what Dr. Xiao calls a blue whirl. When the fuel was all burned, the blue whirl died out. In later experiments, the researchers placed a small tube underwater to feed more fuel to keep the blue whirl going.

Even though fire whirls are relatively efficient in burning fuel, they produce soot particles, which cause the flame to appear yellow. The blue flame, Dr. Xiao said, was even more efficient and soot-free. The researchers had similar results with crude oil.

The authors reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that as far as they know, nobody else has reported observing this form of flame. Blue flames are common and appear in other situations and forms, but this kind of swirling blue vortex had not been seen.

The researchers don’t know exactly what caused the blue whirl to form, and they plan to analyze how the fuel evaporates and mixes with the air, and other factors. Once they have a better handle on the dynamics of this kind of flame, they will try to recreate the blue whirl on a larger scale, of the size that might be useful against an oil spill.

A correction was made on 
Aug. 29, 2016

An earlier version of this article misstated the title of Huahua Xiao. Dr. Xiao is an assistant research scientist at the University of Maryland, not a research associate. It also misstated the year a spill from a Jim Beam factory in Kentucky caused a fire in a pond. It was 2003, not 2011.

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A version of this article appears in print on  , Section D, Page 2 of the New York edition with the headline: Sciencetake: An Effort to Put a Blue, Whirling Vortex of Fire to Good Use. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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